The Panorama of North American Mammals, a version of which is now located in the University of Kansas Natural History Museum in Dyche Hall, debuts as the centerpiece of the Kansas pavilion at the World’s Columbian Exposition in Chicago.

Confederate guerrilla leader William Clarke Quantrill perpetrates his infamous Civil War raid on Lawrence, virtually destroying the town and leaving its surviving residents without financial resources to help support the establishment of KU.

Death of the US Cavalry horse Comanche, once considered the sole American survivor of the Battle of Little Big Horn, whose preserved remains are now on display at the KU Museum of Natural History in Dyche Hall.

The Panorama of North American Mammals, a version of which is now located in the University of Kansas Natural History Museum in Dyche Hall, debuts as the centerpiece of the Kansas pavilion at the World’s Columbian Exposition in Chicago.

The University of Kansas Board of Regents authorizes creation of the four-year KU School of Medicine, accomplished by merging the existing two-year School, based in Lawrence, with three Kansas City-area proprietary medical colleges.

KU journalism students expose a widespread illicit liquor trade in officially "dry" Lawrence when they take over the reins of the Lawrence Daily Journal as part of a one-day experiment in investigative reporting.

Carnegie Foundation researcher Abraham Flexner visits the KU School of Medicine, compiling data and making observations for his influential expose entitled "Medical Education in the United States and Canada."

Kansas Representative William H. Blount convenes a hearing in Topeka to investigate racial discrimination at the University of Kansas, with particular focus on the Medical School’s exclusionary practices that prevent African American students from completing medical degrees at KU.

In a vivid display of 1930s-era pacifism, 700 KU students gather in front of Fowler for a Student Strike Against War Committee protest rally, part of a global antiwar demonstration taking place on 140 campuses across the country and around the world.

The University Daily Kansan reports the death of KU sophomore Don Henry, a volunteer fighting for the Loyalist side in the Spanish Civil War, initiating investigations into radicalism and “communistic activity” at KU and sparking fears of a “Red Scare” on Mt. Oread.

Under pressure from civil rights leaders and Kansas Governor Walter Huxman, the Kansas Board of Regents votes to prohibit the de facto practices that had prevented African American students from completing their medical education at the University of Kansas School of Medicine.

The US Army’s 77th Evacuation Hospital Unit, composed of volunteer doctors and nurses primarily from the KU School of Medicine and its Bell Memorial Hospital, is officially activated for duty in World War II

The “Rural Health Program for Kansas,” a measure conceived by KU School of Medicine Dean Franklin Murphy to provide underserved Sunflower State communities with additional physicians and other medical professionals, is signed into law by Kansas Governor Frank Carlson.

The University of Kansas gains one of the world’s most impressive Irish political and literary collections when 11 tons of books, pamphlets, periodicals, and other items representing the bulk of Patrick Sarsfield O’Hegarty’s library arrive on Mount Oread.

Responding to campus radicalism and slashed state education budgets, a KU group called Students Concerned About Higher Education in Kansas publishes a bold advertisement that asks “WOULD YOU VOTE TO ABOLISH THE UNIVERSITY?”

Over 2,000 students and local residents pack KU’s Woodruff Auditorium for a special screening of The Day After, ABC’s controversial TV-movie filmed in Lawrence that depicts the effects of a nuclear holocaust on a typical American town.

The Spencer Research Library's African American Experience Collection gets its real beginning as a federal grant enables the library to assemble the often overlooked documentary record left behind by Kansas’ African American population in a more focused fashion than ever before.

Grunge rock group Nirvana appears in the Kansas Union Ballroom to promote the group's best-selling album "Nevermind", released just 20 days earlier. By January the album had reached number one on the Billboard charts, eventually selling over 30 million copies worldwide.

The Kenneth Spencer Research Library marks the fortieth anniversary of the founding of the Wilcox Collection of Contemporary Political Movements, which takes as its mission the preservation of materials from America's radical political fringe.